Page 37

Leopold

T ime was weird in this place. Not only were there no clocks—or windows to mark day and night—but Leopold also didn’t have any of the usual bodily urges that helped him gauge the hours.

The only way he could measure time was with TV shows, but the characters kept stopping to chat with him, so that wasn’t terribly helpful either.

When he took a break from fishing, he had nice chats with Hoss Cartwright, Gomer Pyle, and Maxwell Smart, and that was pleasant enough. None of them had any tips on how he might escape his current prison—or at least contact Crispin—but he did learn quite a lot about horses and the Marines.

For a few minutes he’d actually hoped that Maxwell Smart might be helpful, but it turned out that even though he knew a lot about KAOS, an evil organization, he didn’t know much at all about Chaos, the stuff Leopold was made of and now hoarding.

Leopold did feel stronger as he collected more Chaos. More… himself. But he didn’t seem able to do anything with that strength, which was supremely frustrating. He couldn’t even change the color of the stupid walls. Man, I hate white walls.

It was Sheriff Andy Taylor who finally gave Leopold an idea.

It started out as an amiable conversation about small towns, and then Leopold remembered what had annoyed him when he’d watched reruns of the show years later.

“There’s no such place as Mayberry and there never was.

You created this false paradise that makes a lot of people all fuzzy-eyed nostalgic.

But where were the African Americans and the segregation?

Where were the cops who enforced white supremacy and persecuted people of color? Where were?—”

“Now, just hang on there,” the sheriff drawled. “It’s only a television show. A li’l bit of escapism to make folks happy. You can’t begrudge someone a li’l happiness, can you?”

Leopold crossed his arms. “I can if it creates false narratives and unreasonable expectations.”

The sheriff kept on smiling. “You know, the children who watched me and Jeannie and Samantha? Just a few years later they were burnin’ bras and draft cards and riotin’ at Stonewall. So maybe we weren’t so bad after all.”

Leopold was pretty sure that the social activism of the sixties and seventies wasn’t fueled by inane fifties sitcoms, and he was working up a good argument in his favor when Sheriff Andy waved a hand.

“Y’know, sometimes there’s not much we can do at the moment to change the world around us.

When that happens, well, we gotta change ourselves instead.

Kinda reshape ourselves and learn new things so we can change the world.

” He turned to look at something offscreen, then faced Leopold again.

“Well, sir, I have to go. Looks like Opie and Barney have got themselves in trouble again. You take care, now.”

Leopold was left glaring at a blank screen.

“Reshape ourselves,” he grumbled. “I was recently a deer creature—among other things—and I started out as Chaos clouds, so I guess I’ve done plenty of reshaping. Yet here I am.” He stomped his foot for emphasis.

No. Wait. He stomped his hoof , because for a split second, that’s what he had. And when he concentrated hard, he had a hoof again. Two of them, in fact.

He flexed the Chaos inside him like a muscle, and he had birds’ feet with sharp talons, similar to a giant eagle.

Then he had enormous furry feet like a Sasquatch.

Webs like a duck. Tentacles, although that was frankly pretty disturbing so he went back to nice human feet again—except he gave them magenta-and-cobalt stripes, just because he could.

Was the containment spell failing? He eagerly jumped up onto his colorful feet and tried to make a door appear in the wall.

Nothing happened. No door. No window. Not even a peephole. He wasn’t affecting the room at all.

But he was changing himself, just like Sheriff Andy had said. Apparently the spell stopped him from using Chaos on the world around him but didn’t stop him from utilizing it on his own person. Okay. So how can this help me escape?

He experimented with changing his size, but even though he made himself as big as Fromlith, he just ended up squished uncomfortably in the now too-small room.

He couldn’t punch a hole in the walls or stomp through the floor.

Then he made himself tiny, but the room truly had no exits, not even one big enough for an ant.

It also didn’t help when he shifted his color, his species, or his general shape. Being a dodecahedron was briefly amusing—but not helpful.

Leopold stomped again, this time out of frustration. What had the sheriff said? Reshape ourselves and learn new things. How the heck was he supposed to learn anything when he was stuck in this room? He couldn’t even google stuff!

“How can we learn without the internet?” he asked out loud. Because people had done so, once upon a time. He’d seen memes about it. They’d learned through literature and teachers, but he had access to neither. They’d also learned through experience, through trying things and using their senses.

Senses? Huh. What if he could use his to figure out where he was in OotL and whether there was anyone nearby who could help?

He couldn’t see through the walls. Yet the room couldn’t be completely sealed or he would have run out of oxygen by now.

And if air could flow in and out from outside, maybe so could sounds.

Leopold concentrated. He wasn’t sure what animal had the best hearing abilities, but he knew bats were pretty good at it, so he started with that.

He made his ears grow bigger and added muscles so they could twist around.

It felt weird—sort of stretchy and tickly—but not painful or unpleasant.

Then he did his best to make his hearing incredibly acute. He closed his eyes and focused.

And… yes! From far away came snatches of conversation.

One of the desk fae was discussing lunch options with another, while a trio of them were bragging to each other about their latest exploits.

Apparently one had recently collected the Flame of Egeaqesh, whatever that was, and was very happy with herself over it.

Leopold heard pens scratching on paper. He heard faint barks, growls, squawks, and honks, presumably from other creatures that had been locked up in this place.

He heard a toilet flush, followed by a running sink.

He heard someone drop a coin that bounced and rolled across the floor. He heard footsteps.

None of this was getting him anywhere, though. He swore a few times. “This is stupid. Why am I listening to advice from a fictional 1960s police officer? I give up. I?—”

Wait.

Was that screaming? And shouting? And what were those rhythmic pounding noises?

The pounding noise grew faster and he realized it was footsteps. Heavy footsteps. A tendril of hope sprouted inside him. He heard several voices all talking at once:

“—must protest, Mother. You’re playing favorites and choosing him when you should really?—”

“—supervise the workers. Who knows what they’re doing to the bathroom when I’m not?—”

“—retirement might be a nice option for me as long as I know my Estate will be properly?—”

“—not built for people of my stature and I really should?—”

“— squeak chitter chitter ?—”

“—figure out which of these thrice-cursed doors is the right one to?—”

Crispin. That last one was Crispin !

Leopold leaped with joy and followed it with a little dance, waving his hands in the air. “He came for me! Crispy came to rescue me!”

His elation grew to panic, however, when he realized that Crispin and whoever was with him were being chased, and that there were a lot of rooms in this place, and that Crispin had no idea which one was Leopold’s.

Leopold needed a way to steer him. If sound could enter the room, it made sense that it could leave as well. If it was loud enough.

He focused now on his vocal chords. I need to be like a whale .

Their voices could be heard for hundreds of miles.

Or, if you believe the Star Trek movie franchise, their voices could be heard by aliens—who sent a probe that was destroying Earth.

Leopold didn’t want to turn into a whale because the room was too small and too dry, but maybe he could vocally project like one.

“Crispy!” he shouted. Which was a mistake because he still had super-hearing and that yell hurt . He added a new feature to his ears: an automatic volume decrease when he was the one yelling. Then he tried again. “Crispy! I’m here!”

And from far away: “It’s him! It’s Leo! Fromlith, did you hear that? It’s my Leo!” And then, after a brief pause: “Which room is yours?”

Possibly there was a number or some other identification on the door, but Leopold couldn’t see it. He shouted back. “Don’t know! Follow my voice!”

“Okay!”

Leopold was so overcome with excitement that his heart galloped and he could barely breathe. Despite that, he sprinted around the room, yelling Crispin’s name the whole time and then, for good measure, belting out the theme song from Gilligan’s Island .

The running footsteps—which must have been Fromlith’s—came nearer. “Keep singing!” Crispin said. “You’re getting louder!”

Leopold gave him an entire medley of theme songs: Brady Bunch . Fresh Prince of Bel-Air . Laverne that part was good, at least—and grunted. “This stupid Oracle bosses people around and ruins lives. Who is it, anyway?”

Crispin got an odd look on his face and sighed. “I think you’d better ask Minkis.”